At a recent Society for Human Resource Management annual conference, there were a lot of issues being discussed and talked about by the HR fraternity at large. Some of the most common gossip mills doing rounds in the HR industry and being increasing talked about by the human resource professionals at the gathering included:
As awareness about healthy workplaces keeps increasing, so has wellness gone beyond being just a fad. At the SHRM conference, researches confirmed that wellness programmes are gaining prevalence in growing corporate work space culture. The wellness benefits offered to employees include smoking cessation programs, lifestyle and health coaching and premium discounts on getting an annual risk assessment of health is on rise.
As recently, the U.S Department of Labour has proposed raising the salary level at which overtime pay kicks in from $23,300 to $50,440. These overtime rules will be subject to a 60-day review was unveiled at the SHRM conference and majority of HR insiders weren’t much pleased to know about it. According to SHRM, this overtime regulation can impact businesses in many ways such as to include automatically increased salaries, increase in labour costs and reduced flexibility.
See: Demand for HR professionals in Asia continue to increase
The traditional office is dying soon with globalisation making its impact felt on global workplaces. Employees now are enjoying the convenience and flexibility of working anywhere, anytime, so HR managers need to be better prepared to adapt to this changing trend.
“Globalization has made us literally expand our thinking about where and when work gets done and who does it. Companies no longer have the option of saying, ‘I’m local,’ because a bright employee can work from anywhere in the world. And many of them do,” SHRM president and CEO Hank Jackson said during opening remarks at the conference.
Talent has now gone borderless and crowdsourcing temporary work on project basis is much on the rise.
With advancements in technology and dynamic changes in the recruitment and talent management space, HR professionals are required to better managers and leaders to guide the entire workforce to meet business objectives, keep them constantly engaged and motivate them to perform better through careful performance appraisal reviews.
In the purview of HR leaders of tomorrow, Jackson added at the SHRM conference: “I see a growing, dynamic profession whose value to organizations has made us the business leaders. Not business partners. Not trusted advisors. Not change managers but business leaders.”
Brightest talent on board as a part of the workforce and effective people management to train, motivate, engage and guide employees will be the critical business enablers for HRs and not technology just in itself can help.
Talent is the key to innovation, competitiveness and growth in the current dynamic times and HR professionals need to find better paths to connect with employees and make them feel really valued at workplaces. Else in such a rebounding situation, war for talent persists and will continue. HR managers need to grow and stabilise their talent pools to avoid attrition from companies and loss of the brightest talent.
Also read: Pointless Acts by HR Professionals: Stop Doing Them!
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